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RE: Restoring Grasslands with Cattle - Long Considered the Problem, Well Managed Ruminants are Actually the Cure
It's nice to see some permaculture-related stuff on here. We have a small , completely free-range cattle ranching operation in Panama and I'm not sure if I want to keep it going , or not, when we move down there. It helps pay the bills but I'd rather do fruits and vegetables, honestly.
You can't do both?
Well, we're about maxed out in terms of head per acre so, at the very least, I would need to scale back on the number of cattle in order to some food forest stuff. I'd like to put in some swales and other earthworks and that would mean doing some fencing (fencing the cattle out of certain areas).
Money isn't everything but, since everyone there has cattle, we could do better financially if we got into being cattle brokers, opening a cattle auction, trucking livestock around and all that.
Are you doing intensive rotational grazing yet? If not, it's certainly a worthy goal. You'll certainly increase your cow-days/acre.
I'd recommend checking out the work that Regrarians is doing, if you haven't. Their platform, modeled largely after PA Yeomans scale of permanence, helps obtain a holistic and more productive design. You might find that you can design in such a way as to increase diversity into these other areas and still maintain your herd size.
Regenerative Agrarians on facebook is a good group that discusses this.
Nope. I've read some of Salatin's stuff but mostly just seen a few videos. I know how highly regarded he is, though.
Our land, shown above, is very hilly. The fencing, paddocks and whatnot will be problematic. As we stand right now my wife's brother manages the herd for us until we move there permanently, about a year. And, though he is a hard worker and a great guy, they are really stuck in his ways. Anything I want to get done using, say Salatin's methodology, I will have to implement myself once I am there full time.
That photo is from March, dry season. We just got back last week from another trip and it's mid-rainy season and the grass is tall and lush, even though the locals have told us that we are about maxed out on how many cattle we can have for the area. We have 50 acres and 47 head of cattle.
They get plenty of rain there but no one really uses earthworks to full effect, harvests rainwater from rooftops or anything like that. We do have two year-round creeks and several springs, a couple of which we've improved, though.
Wow, what a beautiful spot.
The hills are your friends and offer opportunities you can't get with flat pasture. These are a bit steep, but there is still a lot that can be done. Be careful, because swales on steep hillsides can be disastrous.
Unfortunately, the Regrarians US tour is over. It was an amazing opportunity to learn from Darren. Studying the Holistic information from Alan Savory will help, as does Joel Salatin. IMO, the holistic education from HMI would be very helpful. They have a lot of free resources on the site. This, complemented by the Regrarians Platform, could go a long way toward helping to get the land on a regenerative path. You can buy the first two chapters of the handbook, but the rest is still under development. They're amazingly rich in information.
Your situation looks really wonderful. Water in abundance and good growing conditions offer tons of opportunity. I'm a little jealous. :)